Although in the same region, Myras isn't Marigold City. Masami didn't need to do the same routine such as going to the streets to buy groceries for the guild the continue the day with different plans, and that's exactly why Masami had nothing to do. He would've stuck himself beside Tomoe, considering that both of them are in Myras and he's the only person Masami's actually acquainted with, but surely, he had better plans.

"Ah, this is boring." Masami audibly muttered to himself as he slacked around one of the tables in a certain restaurant. Just a while ago, he strolled around the district in search for good fabric. Considering that there aren't any Joyan-related or inspired goods, Masami believed that he had no use of them. Anything that isn't related to his traditions is rarely comfortable, and he didn't want to regret purchasing anything he wouldn't use. That said, he ended up not purchasing anything.

Days ago, he helped guarding some aristocrats in the Lower District. It was honestly tiring, the Middle District was way better, except it was farther in Masami's tradition, that is. This district was much more peaceful, along with lots of guards scrambled around and interacting with people. 'Gotta get going now.' Masami had stayed in the same restaurant since morning, he was surprisingly not kicked out yet for not buying anything from the menu. Outside the restaurant was another restaurant... a lane of restaurants and restaurant-looking boutiques. Masami didn't find this so horrendous, but it was a sight he preferred not to look at.

Surprisingly, there were also smaller shops and stalls in the same lane, such as sales and very few street vending. There weren't theaters, however, as Masami tried searching for one as he continued to walk. There was one theater, however, a very small one, it appeared to be made for children. Masami, as an actor, had never took part in plays made for children, and that puppet show didn't seem entirely overwhelming. "Wah, cute!" he did react, however, because he believed that it was a sight worth making a response for. He made a small greeting to the person in charge and took a puppet, sliding it into his left hand and joining the scene. Masami would prefer doing it without permission, but not everywhere was he known.

Thought slightly bigger than his hand, Masami was able to manage placing fingers upon the puppets' limbs. He had the goblin puppet, now having a sword. "Nyahaha, you will never defeat me!" he mentioned this in a very high-toned, elder voice, sarcastic enough to make some of the audience laugh because of the sudden new character behind the small theater. Right after, Masami revealed himself to the audience. "Yeah, I suck at this." Yes, it wasn't allowed, breaking the 4th wall like that (in a way). He continued to 'fight' the dragon... was that how the story went? In a way, Masami never thought of humiliating himself, but he must be appearing humiliating to others.

Tomoe was patrolling the streets of the middle district - or rather, he was moments ago. Having just gotten off shift, it was time to party. Immediately the man retrieved a small steel canteen from his coat pocket and pulled off the lid. Inside was the smell of a deliciously spiced rum, his personal favorite. Joya's sake wasn't the sort that appealed to him much, and he much preferred the kick that Fiorian drinks had to offer. He made careful sips as he strode about, making sure nobody saw him doing so in broad daylight. The streets were bustling in the middle district, and so in order to avoid some annoying lawman yelling at him for public consumption of alcohol, he kept it subtle when nobody was looking.

By the time he had made it to the heart of the middle district with civilians and guards aplenty, alcohol was warming his stomach and allowing a slight red to braise his cheeks. The crimson cutthroat stopped to watch a play while buzzed, laughing and clapping at even the jokes that were misses for the majority of the crowd that had gathered.

Tomoe motioned next to a short, pale girl that was closer to him in the crowd and nudged her, feeling more social around strangers than normal.

"You seein' this shit? This is hilarious! These guys are geniuses. Do they do this all the time, or what?", the Joyan started, continuing to chuckle jovially until he saw a familiar face pop out from underneath the theater, breaking the audience's immersion somewhat with a few gasps and laughs.

Tomoe numbered among them, seeing the face of Masami from his guild once again. They had a habit of running into each other, didn't they? The swordsman cheered on his fellow comrade and clapped with his hands above his head. He then also turned back to the short and pale woman, short even when standing next to Tomoe's 5'9", all the while pointing at Masami for the instant that his face was shown.

"That's my boy up there! Look at 'im go! That's talent over there, I tell ya. Heh."

Requiem suppressed her laughter at the goofy boy fighting the dragon. She wasn't sure if it was actually part of the play or what, but the kids seemed to enjoy it and the actor certainly looked like (at least to her) like he knew what he was doing.

A nudge drew her attention, a large redheaded man stood by her, definitely looking like he was enjoying the show as he bragged about the boy. She smiled in reply to him, "he's quite talented. You must be very proud."

Adjusting her stance, Requiem looked closer at the man next to her when a realization hit her, "i saw you fighting at the games!"

She was standing next to the guy that bitch-slapped his opponent after tanking close range magic like it was nothing! Her eyes sparkled in "fangirl" mode as she totally didn't start asking him questions about his training. Or his gear. Or his bitch slap technique.

No she didn't. And anyone who says otherwise has no proof that her mouth went a mile a minute while she was mentally planning how to improve her own training and skills to incorporate the mighty backhand attack.

These are the moments where Masami absolutely didn't realize how... entertaining he can be? Or perhaps the children just find this mere attempt funny simply because they were children. It was expected that the children would make fun of Masami's puppet and call the little goblin puppet different immature nicknames. In response to this, using the goblin puppet, he faced the audience and communicated with them through it. "Yeah, real funny, guys." allowed or not, Masami took the puppet out of the cardboard stage and approached the child audience on foot, causing them to run around and scream and laugh while they were at it, making the puppet look like it was trying to bite the kids. If they weren't obviously finding joy in this, people would assume that Masami was simply being a bully, but at least that was the case.

The voice of someone familiar had enlightened him, a sound that hit close to home in an awfully comfortable way. Thus, Masami immediately turned to the voice's source upon his first few words, almost tearing up for how long he has seen a familiar face. Apparently, Myras was a bit tad unfamiliar to Masami that it suffocates him – he turned to see the same guild master... drunken master? Masami was, however, familiar of what a drunk person looks like; taking the puppet off and simply leaving it on the cardboard stage, the boy approached the red-head and gazed upwards due to their height difference. 'This darned smell...' he didn't want to back out nor cover his nose, that is simply rude. After all, he respects his one and only guild master so much, and Masami couldn't afford finding another alternative opinion of him other than merely heroism.

Another apparent thing was, what the said guild master mentioned about Masami was utterly humiliating. It felt nice to be complimented, however! Just perhaps, in a different way. "Ack... long time no see." the boy chuckled after the statement – if only they were siblings, Masami could've given the man a tight hug or perhaps a kiss on the forehead, but thinking about doing that gave Masami chills on his own spine, "Not to be rude, but I don't think it's a good thing to drink in the streets, sir." It was because nobody did that in his hometown in Joya, drinking in the streets like that. Considering Tomoe's strength (as much as Masami was aware off), he might get immediately pissed off over something random and perhaps kick someone straight out of Myras! He also waited for the lady to finish speaking, slightly eavesdropping, as the Joyan boy makes quick scans from her head down to her toes. 'Dressed well, apparently.' this was his conclusion, making his way behind Tomoe's back and peeking through.

Ah, shit., was Tomoe's first thought as the girl began to talk about the Grand Magic Games and his participation in it.

It was inevitable that someone would eventually recognize him from that event, being as renowned as it was. Still, he didn't enjoy or want the attention. The spotlight always did have a tendency to make him feel vulnerable, and to be recognized as a combatant in a tournament was way more out of his comfort zone than to be known as "that one drunk asshole". Snapping somewhat from his buzzed alcoholic trance, he took a subtle half-step away from the fangirl before him and ran a hand through his hair. Even how he was, he had to play it cool. The ladies had to see the best side of him at all times; that much had to be maintained. With an "ahem", he began to respond to the woman.

"Well ya see, it's all about the wrist movements. Less brute force, more whipping, y'know? Like this!", Tomoe began explaining the secrets of his fabled battle slap, before blindly swinging his open palm at the air to his side - or so he thought, up until he felt his hand make contact against a solid surface.

The Joyan looked over to see a random spectator from the crowd, a middle-aged man, sprawled out on the ground and grasping at his reddened cheek in pain after a single slap.

"Oh fuck.", Tomoe mouthed silently at the sight, before turning his gaze to Masami once the boy had closed in on the conversation.

With quick thinking, Tomoe acknowledged his guild mate's concern for his drinking issue with a nod and then promptly disregarded it for the moment. He wrapped an arm around the boy and introduced him to the conversation he had been participating in.

"Masami, meet my conversation partner, the slap-loving girl! Miss, uhhh... I don't think I got your name actually? But we were just going over the finer points of slapping together! Surely you'd like to join us?"

Tomoe hoped that the situation with the man continuing to rub his face in pain on the ground would resolve itself, keeping the man in his peripherals while doing his best to act like what just happened didn't happen. He would go over more details towards the slap technique, ensuring she would see the steps needed to extract optimal slap damage from each attack.

"Holy—!" Masami was startled over the sudden impact against the stranger, looking back at Tomoe, then the stranger, repetitively. Somehow, it was Masami who was more concerned over the person, and not the one who hit him? Why isn't anyone panicking but Masami?! Perhaps it was because this lady fawned over some sort of "games" and Tomoe was in it, was Masami simply outdated and unaware this whole time? He sighed, slightly complaining. "Seriously, Tomoe..." then he lowered down, checking the middle-aged man's status. "I'd like to skip that slapping session." the blond responded with a smile, finding his guild master's invitation to be silly. If the cause of this problem will not fix it before others would start hating on them, then it's Masami's job to fix it. He can't help but help people, anyway.

"Sir, are you alright...?" when Masami asked this, it was just in time when the people started to encircle them, trying to avoid more conflicts, murmuring surrounding the background. Masami lightly raised the man's head up, checking to see how much that slap even dealt. Guards also started to rush in, not letting any sort of problem become encouraging to the people in Middle District. When the man looked back, he was obviously angry... he was very angry. "I'd like to ask for your forgiveness and... err... sir?" the man leaned closer over to the young boy, seemingly fond over his appearance.

Masami's spine felt like being ripped off due to the chill, slightly backing away in awkwardness. When the man finally asked, "What's your name, miss?" Masami finally understood where this was going, and he was slightly disgusted by it. The guards had also arrived, looking at the four of them in the center, and the blond stood up along with the man, whom said: "It's alright, lads. I'd like to take this lady here as compensation." Where did Masami go wrong this time? He had his arm grabbed by the man and simply dragged out, on the way to a nearby restaurant for a date. As he was being dragged away, the townspeople continued to chatter and laugh over the scenario. "Tomoe? Ah, let me go! Tomoe!"

Requiem realized she had gotten lost in her fangirling, "Ah, sorry, I'm Requiem. I had the fight against the guy with the giant gun at the magic games."

She preened a bit considering how fast she had win that match. Her self-satisfaction was quickly cut short when she noticed that a random bystander had been knocked over, oh shit. This can't end well.

She very pointedly decided that maybe acknowledging what just happened wouldn't be a very good idea. She had slap techniques to stea- learn. To learn the honorable art of the bitchslap, "So like this then?" She carefully flicked her hand out and snapped her wrist like she was cracking a whip.

Masami's protesting suddenly caught her attention and she turned to see him not where he was, "did...did you just misplace your friend? She looked around curiously and caught bare sight of him being dragged off by the guards, "should we be concerned?"

"Giant gun?", Tomoe inquired, curious; he hadn't gotten a proper chance to observe the other fights in the tournament too closely, his head admittedly aching for a number of hours after it had ended.

Tomoe looked over at Masami being dragged away by the guy that he had previously slapped, who seemed to be... oddly fond of the young boy? Wait. That was illegal. And shady. And gross. A grown man dragging a little boy off alone? No good could come of that. Perhaps Tomoe's slap in that moment wasn't just an accident. Perhaps his hand was guided - guided towards inflicting pain upon the dirty. Guided towards justice.

Tomoe looked towards the man and pondered. His guild mate was screaming for help. Even in his drunken stupor, Tomoe couldn't ignore what was going on right in front of him. It was wrong.

"Er, sorry, you'll need to excuse me for a second, Req. I got a child-lover to fuck up.", Tomoe explained calmly, his eyes burning.

He knew that the other bystanders would look on in joy, somehow. Laughing. They would probably suffer his slap soon enough, too. For now though, he had only one target for the open palm strike technique, and that was the man who had already received it once. The fact that the man had gotten up meant that Tomoe couldn't claim to be a "one slap man". But maybe with a little bit of effort and passion he could become a "two slap man" instead. The second one would put that freak in the grave.

Taking a stance like an Olympic runner preparing for a sprint, the Joyan warrior shot forward like a rocket towards the escaping duo of Masami and the creep. Off into the distance and around the corner towards tomorrow with only the thought of rescuing his ally from certain doom, an echoing slap and the sound of a man screaming in pain and somehow multiple explosions could be heard. That day, Tomoe would show no mercy towards the filth that plagued the streets.

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- Exit -